driving to forget the feeling of you
by Cathywren
Summary: a modern AU about driving at midnight and engagement rings and kissing and knowing when you're too late and wishing with all your heart that you weren't {arthurxmerlin} one shot


**\\\ AN: I hate myself and it's a good thing I don't own Merlin because if I did this shit would happen and I'd never forgive myself/**

Arthur was driving when he got the call, because these days, he was always driving. Knuckles white against the dark steering wheel, the freeway slurring into a monotony of fading lights and his radio turned up high enough that it made his ears ache long after he'd stumbled into bed. The stars ahead blinked, telling him to sleep. Sometimes he spoke to them, when no one else was listening, but they were terrible at conversation. All they did was tell him how wrong he was how terrible how stupid how

_Ring ring ring._

He didn't check the caller ID, just swerved off the road - nobody was on the freeway now, it was too late and too foggy and too much - and held his mobile to his ear. "H'llo?"

"Ar'tur?" Though slurred and almost completely silent, Arthur would have known the voice anywhere, because he was the reason for this, for all this driving without a fucking destination, because the destination was him but he was a moving target and every time Arthur took a shot he missed and he was just so -

"Merlin? What's wrong?"

"Ar'tur." Arthur could picture Merlin's face now, and he wished he couldn't, because he saw him the way he used to be, when he was the man that Arthur had fallen so terribly, irrevocably, desperately in love with. The haggard, gaunt face of the man he couldn't stop loving didn't seem right, never would. "Ar'tur."

"Merlin." Arthur didn't wait, he was already back on the freeway, swerving into different lanes and speeding and taking exits to nowhere, just to get back, because Merlin never called anymore, and because who would he call why was he calling what was going on - "Merlin, where are you?"

"Ar'tur." Merlin's slurred voice pronounced Arthur's name again, slowly, softly, as if it was something precious. His heart twisted. It had been, once. "'M sorry, Ar'tur. I messed up."

Arthur was going 90 miles per hour and his fingers were going numb from holding onto the steering wheel so tight. Exits flew by, but they weren't going by fast enough, because he was going so fucking slow and Merlin was moving so fucking fast. That had always been the story, though. Merlin always left Arthur behind, he never waited. "What are you talking about, Merlin?"

A laugh. "Us. 'M sorry, Ar'tur. Shoulda… shoulda worked harder. For you."

_Yeah, you should have. _The fights, the drinking, the drugs, the needles, the screaming the hitting the leaving the crying the

"You didn't do anything wrong, Merlin." Because even after everything Arthur didn't want to find faults in what was once so perfect, because that would be admitting that something had been wrong.

"Why're you lying?" Merlin huffed, so indignant, so _Merlin. _LIke he'd been before the fucking heroin, like he'd been when he used to stop at the corner stop and buy Arthur flowers when he used to remember their anniversary when

Arthur turned off the exit, his tires skidding across the pavement as he made the sharp turn down the last stretch of the freeway. Merlin kept speaking garbled gibberish that Arthur had to strain to hear and then had to strain twice as hard to ignore.

"'M tired, Ar'tur." Merlin's voice was quieter now. "Took too much. Tired."

"Stay on the line, Merlin." Arthur turned down main street and almost hit a couple of pedestrians but didn't stop to apologize because Merlin oh my _God _Merlin what did you do "What are you talking about?"

"'M sorry for Gwaine, Ar'tur." He was whispering now and somehow it was louder than Arthur's radio ever could have been but he wished it would just stop, that it would just fucking _stop_. "He… he wasn't… Not like you."

Arthur wanted to close his eyes and hit something because it had been two years and two years was too long to apologize for something like that but it was _Merlin, _and he loved him and he'd always loved him and he didn't know how to stop. "I know," He lied, even though he hadn't. Because you could never, with Merlin. You just couldn't ever know.

"'E left me, too, y'know." Merlin let out a laugh that turned into coughing, horrible retches where nothing came out because there was nothing inside. Arthur's hands gripped the steering wheel harder because he was so close but so far and Merlin needed him. "So y'got whatcha wanted in the end, eh?"

_No, _Arthur wanted to yell, _No, I did not, because all I've ever wanted was you. _Instead, he screeched to a stop and ran out of his car, phone to his ear. "Let me up, Merlin." He was leaning against the apartment, buzzing the number again and again and again. "Let me upstairs, right now."

"Can't." He could picture the raven haired man shaking his head. "Tired. So tired, Ar'tur. Going to sleep."

"Merlin. Merlin!" The line went dead with a click and Arthur was alone and this was so dramatic but it wasn't a play and now he was stuck outside while Merlin was… While he was… Arthur pressed every single button and kicked the door until one buzzed, one of them buzzed, and he ran inside, sprinted up the stairs because the elevator had always taken too long and then he was outside apartment 3B and the door was open because Merlin never locked it and he was stepping inside and everything was

destroyed.

Couches ripped, walls stained, mess and clothes and dishes and needles and smoke. Arthur looked around through the mess until he found what he was looking for. The red neckerchief and Merlin, lying against the wall, dark eyes staring at the stars as they slowly closed.

"Merlin!" He stumbled over to the man, grabbed his shoulders and shook, voice rough. "Merlin, what the hell are you doing? What the hell did you do?"

Merlin blinked once, twice, his haggard, gaunt face stretching in recognition. "Ar'tur?"

"Bloody hell, Merlin." Arthur whispered, pressing Merlin's shaking body against his. Skin and bones, chapped lips, glazed eyes. "What did you do?"

"Too much." Merlin's breath was hot against his ear, lips scratchy on his neck. "Too much this time, Ar'tur."

"No. No, no, no. We're getting you to a hospital, right now." He reached for his phone to call 911, an ambulance, someone, _anyone, _but Merlin reached out and Arthur was

d.

He shook his head, big, dark eyes blinking slowly. "'M scared, Ar'tur."

Arthur couldn't answer. Luckily, Merlin didn't seem to need him too.

"Shoulda… shoulda lived better. Shoulda lived more." Merlin's eyes found him and suddenly their faces were so close too close not close enough, "Shoulda loved you better."

Arthur couldn't pull away. "You loved me just fine, Merlin."

Merlin pulled his lips up in that crooked smile and Arthur reached for his phone again because they needed to _do _something but then Merlin was sighing and closing his eyes and whispering, "'M sorry."

"No. No!" Arthur shook Merin again, fingers so tight they must be leaving a bruise but he didn't care anymore, nothing mattered except for this stupid boy. "You are not dying on me, Merlin Ambrosius. You won't. You _can't_." His voice broke on the last word and he swallowed, holding on tighter.

Merlin blinked one eye open. "Why?"

"Because…" His throat was dry and his tongue was like sandpaper against his teeth as he struggled to find the words he'd always needed to say. "Because I love you, okay? Because I still fucking love you and I probably always will and you are _not _dying on me, not until we fix this, okay?" He held Merlin's face up, holding that beautiful jaw with one hand and stroked his soft, untamed hair with another. "Okay?"

Merlin smiled and closed his eyes. "'Kay." Arthur's hand brushed Merlin's and he felt something cold and silver and terribly familiar and looked up because Merlin was still wearing the fucking ring from so, so long ago. They met eyes again and Merlin just nodded slowly, quietly, truthful and Arthur wished he wasn't, suddenly, because they'd be so close to perfection and nothing was fair.

Arthur rested his forehead against Merlin's, shaking his head. "I love you, you stupid boy. I am in such terrible, stupid, heartbreaking love with you."

And Merlin leaned in kissed him, and it was beautiful and painful and intense and tragic and heartbreaking and suddenly he was not, and

"911," Arthur cried into his phone. "Please, oh God, please, he isn't breathing, I don't know what to do, please, please hurry." But even as he called he knew oh god he knew and he would have given anything not to know because there was no fate worse than knowing oh _God, _Merlin, please.

Merlin's kiss burned his lips even after he stumbled out of the hospital. A promise of everything that they could never achieve, a reckless apology, a mistake so terrible that it might always linger.

"Oh, Merlin." At home, he rested his head against the door, hands working that stupid fucking beautiful terrible engagement ring he'd never taken off because it was too small and too big and too fucking empty. "I am in such terrible, stupid, heartbreaking love with you." And he cried for everything they couldn't have and for the way Merlin had kissed him and for everything inbetween.

But mostly, he cried for the thousands of drives he'd have to take at midnight to forget that there was nobody waiting for him at home.


End file.
